The Son of Skywalker
by TeraWatt
Summary: ONE-SHOT - Darth Vader finds something more than he bargained for. Rated T for Darth Vader doing mild Darth Vader stuff.


A/N: This is a one-shot. It is highly unlikely that I will continue this story as this has been sitting on my computer in its current state for the better part of five years. As always, if you are interested in adopting this, or any, of my stories, please PM me and let me know what you have in mind and I will likely consent to said adoption.

That said, I hope you enjoy this one-shot!

 **The Son of Skywalker**

 _~ By TeraWatt_

It had started with a Wookie rebellion on Kashyyyk. Protests to the Empire's view of non-human species had inevitably turned violent and there was word of a Jedi taking refuge with the seven foot high beasts. Vader needed no further reason than that to make a house call as it were.

Truly, Vader had been going through the motions as of late. A fight to the death with yet another remnant of the Jedi Order might break the monotony of his existence.

The fact of the matter was that Vader hated no one more than himself. True, he despised his _Master_ ; Sidious was as slimy as they came, and had lately been ignoring Vader as though he was just another servant, to be used and cast aside on a whim. He was furious with Kenobi for leaving him to die on Mustafar. But he hated himself above both of them, his angel was dead by his hands and all the evil he had wrought on the galaxy had been for naught.

All his life he had been used for the benefit of others. Born as a slave, Anakin Skywalker had move from Master to Master until Qui-Gon had freed him. For the total of five days he had relished his freedom, and then Qui-Gon had died. Obi-Wan became his new mentor and the Council his new Master. Used for years and held up to inconceivably high standards, after all he was the _Chosen One_ , he was once again a slave. Later on, this slave had been blessed with a loving wife, beneath the noses of his Masters, and the slave had something of value to protect. Prophetic dreams revealed a danger to all that was precious to him and he swapped Master for Master as one had promised the power to save her. And in the madness generated by his new Master's teachings he had killed his wife. And so he was a slave again. His actions had destroyed not only his beloved wife, but their unborn child. Though Padme had been sure it was a girl, Anakin KNEW it was a boy, his son, his Luke.

Vader might be seen as some monster of vengeance, chasing down even the slightest hint of a Jedi. The fact was that Vader sought them out because any one of them might be able to kill him, to serve him the just end he knew his actions warranted.

But, as he fought yet another Jedi, he found that this Jedi would fare just as well as all the others. He blasted the man through the timber wall of his house and followed him into the building at a sedate pace; the man wasn't going anywhere and would probably die anyway with the injuries Vader had already given him.

Vader hesitated as he felt a strong force user nearby. Picking the broken Jedi up by the throat, Vader lifted him from his feet into the air.

"I sense someone far more powerful than you nearby. WHERE IS YOUR MASTER?"

"The dark side has warped your senses!" he wheezed.

"You . . killed m . . my master . . . . years . . ago!"

"And _you_ will share his fate!" said Vader as he raised his lightsaber to strike the killing blow.

Stunned, Vader watched his weapon sail from his hand to a small boy, perhaps five years old.

"A son?" Vader wondered out loud.

"RUN!" gasped the Jedi at the boy, before Vader crushed his windpipe and dropped him as an afterthought.

A moment passed between Vader and the boy. Vader observed that the boy's stance and grip were off, and caught himself before he almost corrected both instinctively. Anakin had once daydreamt about training Luke when he grew up. And a strange paternal feeling came to Vader's attention.

And the moment was broken when several storm troopers entered the building followed by that pompous idiot of a commanding officer. The weak minded fool took one look at the boy holding a lightsaber against Vader and signalled his troops to kill the boy.

Acting on an instinct he didn't understand, Vader retrieved his weapon, deflected the blaster bolts back into the troopers and decapitated the officer whom, if Vader was honest with himself, he had already resolved to kill when he first met the man.

A few hours had passed since Vader had secured the boy in an unused officer's cabin on board his star destroyer. Vader still didn't know why he had taken the boy with him.

He had just started to meditate and seek answers in the force when he felt a vaguely familiar presence in his room. He was shocked to see an apparition of Qui-Gon Jinn in his room. 'A Force Ghost' his mind supplied.

"Hello Anakin, it's been a long time."

Once Vader's shock had passed, a brief moment if even that, he returned to staring out the viewport to the endless starfield. Without looking at the dead Jedi Master he replied in a resigned monotone.

"Master Jinn. What are you doing here? Are you here to see what has become of the slave boy you freed? Here to gloat about how far I've fallen?"

"The boy you've brought with you." Jinn ignored Vader's questions "He will be your salvation. He will help you free yourself of your Master's chains, and the chains you have made for yourself."

Vader wasn't in the mood for playing word games with the living; with a dead Jedi even less.

"What are you talking about old man?"

Qui-Gon slowly ambled to Vader's side and viewed the stars alongside the Sith Lord.

"Anakin,"

At this Vader interrupted abruptly.

"Vader."

"Anakin," Qui-Gon continued as though he hadn't been interrupted. "The boy is your path to freedom. Raise him as you would have raised Luke with Padme. You owe that boy a father as you took his away from him."

Vader turned fully to look at Jinn.

"Why should I?" he demanded. "I owe the boy nothing!"

Eyes still searching the stars and without turning to look at Vader, Qui-Gon replied.

"Then do it to repay your debt to me. And know that Padme and Shmi are watching everything you are doing. Every atrocity, every murder. After everything they sacrificed for you to reach your full potential, it insults them you instead wallow in your own self-hatred."

At this Vader was enraged. The unmitigated _gall_ of this ghost! To bring Padme or Shmi into this!

"How _dare_ you! You don't know the first thing about my mother or wife! I held my mother as she died and I was tricked into killing my own wife! If they had understood how evil the Jedi were, how corrupt the old Republic was, they would have supported me!"

After Vader had finished his furious rant Qui-Gon turned his head and raised his eyebrow; but then, even Vader could tell that this last statement was false.

"You have always known good from evil Anakin. From your earliest days you could tell at a glance where each person was on the scale from a true paragon of virtue to the most vile, self-centred evil person that _could_ exist. The only people you could not see the alignment of were the Sith, and by the time you could, you didn't care."

Qui-Gon turned fully to face the angry Sith Lord.

"You can lie to yourself and you can even lie to your dark master, but I AM the Force. I know the true reason you seek the Jedi. You know that your actions and inactions are wrong, even though you don't relish them, and you instinctively seek out the only ones who would give you true justice. You KNOW that despite the atrocities you have committed against the Jedi Order, they would give an unbiased judgement that would be fair."

Vader couldn't accept this.

"After everything I've done, not even Kenobi would give _me_ a fair trial. And I wouldn't blame them." He replied emphatically.

"Don't be so quick to judge my old Padawan, Anakin. He knows now what truly happened to push you over the edge."

Vader was confused.

"What are you talking about?"

Qui-Gon continued.

"In the closing days of the Clone Wars, how much contact did you have with Sidious?"

Vader had no idea where Jinn was going with this and, despite himself, humoured the apparition.

"I met and talked with him almost every day. Sometimes twice or more _each_ day."

"And after each encounter, you were not only more angry and susceptible to the dark, but you started having nightmarish visions. Did you ever drink anything in his office, a glass of water perhaps?"

"What does that matter? Yes. We would sit down and discuss things with a drink."

Qui-Gon raised both eyebrows at this.

"What does it _matter_? Anakin! You know from your own studies of a dark side nexus hidden in Lake Nath which makes one –"

"More susceptible to dark side insanity. The entire planet was corrupted by a Sith, and, since the Jedi couldn't completely eliminate the corruption, the Jedi contained the nexus within the waters of Lake Nath. Are you suggesting that I was drinking tainted water that was giving me false visions?"

"Not false, but the worst possible outcome. The water, while not poisonous in small amounts, affects the moods of the drinker, making one quick to anger and pessimistic. Add that to Sidious' very aura and you have a Jedi, pushed to the edge of the abyss, and telling you that to save your family, you have to jump."

"What does it matter. In the end I'm just a failure of a slave who killed his wife and unborn child."

"While I won't deny that your wife is dead and that you had a part in it, don't be so arrogant to claim responsibility for a death you didn't intentionally cause. Do you really think Palpatine wouldn't hedge his bets? Really! Think for a moment. Any children you would have would be an immense threat to him. From the moment Padme and you were married he was plotting her death. Childbirth is dangerous enough without fighting off a toxin at the same time."

"That bastard killed my wife and had me believe that _I_ did it!? I'll kill him!"

"And I can tell you how. One of the only ways for you to kill the emperor and live to relish his absence is the path I'm suggesting. You need to train the boy, Galen Marek. Train him in both the light and the dark, teach him conscience and morality, you are uniquely placed to teach him this, having lived in both extremes of the force. Your apprentice needs to be raised with love and care or the plan will fail."

"You want me to teach the child _both_ sides of the force?"

"When I was alive, I was almost censured for believing that the force must be balanced in a person for them to reach their highest potential in power and as a person. The Jedi were far too dependent on the government and aloof to the average person. The Sith are independent and self-reliant but also self-obsessed. Some of the best Force sensitives in history have been grey. For example Lord Revan or Meetra Surik or even Darth Vectivus. They showed mastery of both sides of the Force without succumbing to the lure of either extreme."

"If you believed in this 'balance' of yours, then why wasn't I taught this by Kenobi? He worshipped the ground you walked on. He would even and did in fact defy his precious council in your name."

"I taught my first apprentice my belief. She was mature enough to accept it without falling to dark-side insanity. I was waiting for Xanatos to mature before I put my idea forth. I had resolved to teach him after he was knighted. But you know what happened then."

"He fell. He left you for personal reasons and disgraced the Jedi."

"Well, after that I wasn't even going to take another apprentice. I found myself with Obi-Wan and he was already indoctrinated. It would take years to undo that mindset of 'light is good and dark is bad'. I had also lost confidence in my own teaching ability. I had resolved that I would teach him after he took the trials. With the way things turned out, me being killed by that Sith Zabrak, it re-polarized his view of morality and the force."

"So if I do this I can avenge _her_?"

"If you do this, not only will you give her and countless others justice, but you can redeem yourself and look your wife in the eyes when you eventually pass from this world. Remember that Padme married Anakin Skywalker. Darth Vader has only ever caused her pain. Let Anakin out again. Be a father to Galen."

For a long time, the man in the suit contemplated what he had been told. It would be difficult and it would be painful. But would it be worth it? The thought of his wife and the half remembered dream of what _could have been_ , galvanized his resolve.

"Very well." He said at last. "I will."

But Master Jinn was gone and he was alone in his quarters.

For the first time in three long terrible years, Anakin Skywalker stirred.

 _fin_


End file.
